Dear Lili,
Today sucked and here is why… your mother has gone to great lengths to pump, sterilize and prepare bottles for you several times a day to teach you the bottle but you are still not having it. I even get up several times in the night 1AM, 3AM, 5AM, etc. to pump and prepare more milk for you with the goal being that you will learn to take the bottle from someone else other than me and I can leave you for a while to get some writing done or god forbid do something nice for myself – by myself! But noooooooo. You’re not having it. For example here is how today went:
Nanny came and I forced myself to walk the 20 minutes up to the gym.
Got to gym and did not have wallet with my ID in it to get in.
Decided to return pair of your Dad’s pants I’ve been lugging around in bag. Store says can’t return pants because I don’t have ID – left in wallet at home.
Start to walk 20 minutes back home.
Go to call nanny to check on you guys but cell phone falls on sidewalk and smashes to bits. Does not turn on for over 20 minutes. I dig in bag for quarter to use pay phone and realize Nanny’s number is in my phone. My dead phone. Can’t even find quarter because left wallet at home.
Phone finally turns on magically after I pounded it in anger against my palm. I go to call Nanny but Nanny beats me to it calling me to say you are totally freaking out and won’t take the bottle and that I need to rush home.
Rush home and both she and I are unable to sooth you for close to 30 minutes. You are choking on your own mucus, tears streaming down your face, your chest is heaving and you are hysterical. Finally I nurse you even though I am trying desperately to teach you the bottle and not the boob so I can leave the house now and again!!!
Once you are calm tell nanny I am going out (with wallet) for a bit with the goal of getting a pedicure. Get to pedicure place and all is going well until I get another call from Nanny that you are once again hysterical. I rush home and smear my not fully dry toenails on the way.
Once home the two of us are unable once again to calm you. You are hysterical. Twenty minutes later I finally break and nurse you again but this time you are so hysterical that you choke on milk each time you try to drink it. You choke. Drink. Choke. Drink. Choke – turn blue gasping for air kind of choke. It is stressful and annoying. Despite trying to remain calm I am moved to tears.
Finally you pass out from exhaustion.
I look at the clock and it is time for the nanny to go home.
I pay her $70.
THE END
Oh, you know I feel your pain. It makes me want to curl in a ball and cry and scream to remember going through this.
Here’s my absolute assvice, which you can disregard wholly or in pieces- your choice! Also, I know MANY people who went through this, and except for one, they all ended up with babies who took the bottle. And that one survived and thrived regardless and just made up for it by nursing all night. Not a party, but everyone lived.
1. What ended up working for us was finding the right bottle (I bought about 10, no joke). The Playtex Drop-In’s were the clincher.
2. I don’t know if you are going back to work full-time or what your schedule is going to be, and while I know this isn’t ideal and you need alone time, it won’t be long before Lili could drink from a sippy cup and will be eating food. If you REALLY can’t make it happen RIGHT NOW (and I bet you can, it will just take a lot of work and tears. good times.), and you don’t NEED to make it happen, you could possibly find another solution in a few months.
3. Some babies really like to be in a position similar to breastfeeding to drink the bottle, others need to be in totally different positions (i.e., facing out). She might also take it outside better than inside, because she’s more distracted by what’s going on.
AND that is why my 2-year old is still drinking a bottle and I couldn’t care less. Too much mama trauma.
It gets better, I promise.
Though, I’m a man who’s never had anyone depend on my boobs* for EVERYTHING. So what do I know? :-]
*for the record, I don’t have boobs at all.
And here’s my two cents – I agree with Nicole about the Playtex drop-ins (you can conserve and recycle in other areas of your life) and I’m big into “change the environment” when Baby loses It and outdoors is often the ticket. My brother had insane colic and would let no one touch him but my dad and stepmonster but he was tolerant of me if I took him outside. Same with a little boy I took care of in the East Village – nothing like store windows at night….or during the day.
And she’s not wearing that fleece, right? Oliver is STILL sensitive to heat to the point I just rejected many a blanket jammie handmedown.
Be brave little soldier! It may not get better for a while but they get even cuter to make up for it.
uh oh.
you’re up every two hours pumping? you poor thing. i have been there. no fun. i used to wish i could hire a nanny to just let me sleep for a few hours during the day. you must be totally exhausted.
for what its worth, we bought a couple of these funky booblike bottles (http://www.adiri.com/) that you are welcome to if you’re interested. supposedly, they are more like breastfeeding. We have a slow one and a fast one and for S they were too slow and too fast somehow, but maybe they’d be just right for Lili? We used the slow one maybe half a dozen times and the fast one just once… so they’re barely used. Lemme know – if you want them they’re yours for the taking.
yeap. my first kid was like that. my mom and nanny both, on a separate account, had to feed the kid milk with a SPOON.
he continued to ignore the plea for bottles and pacifiers and went straight for cups at some months, which i forgot..
but like someone mentioned in comments, dont worry.. it goes by fast. if you are freelancer like me, perhaps, you can breastfeed her and “spoon” or cups to supplement? that’s what i did and he’s still quite a fatty. :)
hang in there k! for what it’s worth raul andres never took the bottle. gabriel took a sippy cup at about 8 months or so because he’s obsessed with his older brother. there are many many kids who won’t take the bottle but soon enough she’ll be feeding much father apart, and then she’ll be onto solids. one of my closest friends daughter refused to eat for EIGHT hours for THREE days when her mom went back to work reducing her mom to a pile of nubs and tears and pretty much considering quitting her job. the fourth day her daughter broke down and was fine ever since.
my aunt’s third was also a stubborn little chick and dad had to drive her to her mom’s work place three times a day to feed. the stories go on and on, it all depends on how much you can handle and then she will go and change on you anyway!
Maybe this bottle would help?